Month: March 2021

The results of the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Microfiction Competition are in!

This year we awarded first, second and third prizes, together with seven highly commended flashes. All ten stories will receive prize money and will be published in the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, which will be out in time for National Flash Fiction Day on 26 June 2021.  The winning and highly commended stories can be read here.

Thank you to our four judges. Their job this year was extremely difficult, requiring extra rounds of voting to reach our final ten.  This year's competition was judged by:

• Rachael Dunlop
• K M Elkes
• Sharon Telfer
• Alison Woodhouse

Huge congratulations to our winning and highly commended authors:

FIRST PRIZE

• 'Tea Time' by Susan James

SECOND PRIZE

• 'Last Supper' by Faye Brinsmead

THIRD PRIZE

• 'Amalgamation' by Johanna Robinson

HIGHLY COMMENDED (in alphabetical order)

• 'Adverb' by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
• 'The Burning Boy' by Sam Payne
• 'A Cyclist' by Anne Howkins
• 'The Doll Hospital' by Rosie Garland
• 'Long Twilight' By Tracey Weller
• 'Sirens' By Caoimhín de Paor
• 'Summer Breeze' by Paul Dicken

Congratulations again to all our prize-winning and highly commended authors, and to all those who were shortlisted. And, a big thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition and trusted us with their stories.

This year, we were thrilled to receive an amazing 726 micro fiction entries to the National Flash Fiction Day Micro Fiction Competition. This is 300 more than we received last year!

Our judges, Rachael Dunlop, K M Elkes, Sharon Telfer and Alison Woodhouse had the difficult job of whittling down the 726 stories to a shortlist of 26. This was no easy task and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank the judges for their hard work and for the speed and conscientiousness with which they carried out the judging.

It isn’t easy to tell a story in a 100 words, yet we were blown away by the variety of themes, subjects and styles we saw in the submissions. Thank you to everyone who sent in their work; we appreciated the chance to read your flash.

We are excited to announce that as a celebration of our 10^th anniversary, we will be awarding cash prizes to seven Highly Commended Micro Fictions in addition to those placed first, second and third.

Judging is still going on, so if you are lucky enough to be on the shortlist, feel free to celebrate on social media, but please don't mention the name of your story so that judging can remain anonymous.

Now, without further delay, our 26 shortlisted stories are:

#NoFilter

A Cyclist

A Plague of Farmers

Adverb

Adverse Camber

Amalgamation

Another Version

Association

Brautigan Banquet

Erosion

Heartbeat

Last Supper

Long twilight

Motherhood

Necessary

Ovens

Paper Bird

Sirens

Spider Plant

Still Life

Summer Breeze

Tea Time

The Burning Boy

The Doll Hospital

The inescapable irony of protective packaging

The Key